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The Conservatives have learned their lessons well..

Posted by Scott Tribe on August 24, 2008, at 12:31 pm |

…from their Republican mentors. The Bush White House has perfected the art of doing this: when bad news strikes, they try to do what is called a Friday news dump to ensure there’s as little press or Democratic spokespersons around to either report it or criticize it, or to ask them potentially embarrassing questions. It appears our Conservative government is copying their American Idols to the letter:

The Conservative government has quietly scuttled the navy’s $2.9-billion project to replace its aging supply ships, saying bids from the shipbuilding industry were “significantly” higher than the money set aside for the program. It has also cancelled a tender call for the purchase of 12 mid-shore patrol ships for the Coast Guard. The decisions were announced in a statement issued at 8:30 Friday night by Public Works Minister Christian Paradis.

I guess they are hoping that no one remembers to ask about it on Monday morning and call into question their claim of being the only party in Canada that “supports the troops”; which is not the case for the Canadian Navy, at any rate.

It kind of makes that particular “ten percenter” flyer they’ve been mailing around that Galloping Beaver is highlighting over their way a bigger waste of paper then normal – and actually something to potentially use against them to call them out as hypocrites on the military. Maybe some folks should write Dean Del Maestro back using that ad (since mailing them back is free) and point that out to him and the Conservative Research Bureau.

3 comments to The Conservatives have learned their lessons well..

Anyway, that sort of thing doesn’t work as well as it used to. It only worked because people never read Saturday newspapers. Now nobody reads newspapers in the first place, and those friday announcements can serve as grist for the political mill that is the Sunday-morning talk show.

(And that’s assuming the bloggers don’t get their teeth in it. Which they often do. This would make a fine YouTube viral ad, don’t you think?)

What? say it aint so!? The government is backing out on a project? something that every single level of government does on a daily bases because of ballooning costs? I hope this doesn’t actually pass for a tragedy with you people.